Modern states are more commonly classed as _monarchies_ and _republics_. The former includes those in which the chief executive officer of the state—be he king, emperor, or other potentate—holds his position by hereditary right; the latter includes those in which he is selected in some other way. But even this classification is not very enlightening. It does not tell us anything definite about the degree of actual control which the people of a state exercise over their government. In some monarchies like Great Britain the power of the people, exercised through their representatives, is very great; in some republics, in China for example, this power is very slight. The term republic is nowadays far from being synonymous with democracy; nor is the term monarchy incompatible with it. Various so-termed republics of Central and South America have been in fact little more than military despotisms. [Sidenote: National and federal states.] Another classification, much more useful, is that which separates _national_ from _federal_ states. By the former term we mean a unified state with a single government which reaches down directly to the citizen. Great Britain is a _national_ state with a monarchical form of government; France is also a national state with a republican form of government. A _federal_ state, on the other hand, is an agglomeration of smaller states, each of which retains its own government but with a central government possessing certain powers over them all. The German empire, a few years ago, was an example of a federal state under a monarchical form of government, while the United States affords an illustration of federalism with republican institutions. This classification is worth while, for it tells us something tangible about the states so classified. When we say that a state is of the federal type we imply that it has two spheres of government within it; that is has a written constitution defining these spheres; that the upper house of its parliament or legislature in some way represents the component units of the federation and that it has, in all probability, some powerful arbiter such as a supreme court to decide conflicts of authority between the nation and its component parts. Practically all federal states, at any rate, have these political characteristics. One cannot imagine a successful federal state without a written constitution, without division of political powers, without some existing authority to decide between the respective claims of the whole and its parts. [Sidenote: True and false democracies.]